Question

People have wondered for a long time how their personalities and behavior are formed. It is not easy to explain why one person is intelligent and another is not, or why one is cooperative and another is competitive.

Social scientists are of course extremely interested in these types of questions. They want to explain why we possess certain characteristics and exhibit certain behavior. There are no clear answers yet, but two distinct schools of thought on the matter have developed. As one might expect, the two approaches are very different from each other, and there is a great deal of debate between proponents of each theory. The controversy is often conveniently referred to as “nature and nurture”．

Those who support the “nature” side of the conflict believe that our personalities and behavior patterns are largely determined by biological factors. That our environment has little, if anything, to do with our abilities, characteristics and behavior is central to this theory. Taken to an extreme，this theory states that our behavior is predetermined to such a great degree that we are almost completely governed by our instincts(本能)．

Proponents of the “nurture” theory, or, as they are often called, behaviorists, claim that our environment is more important than our biologically based instincts in determining how we will act. A behaviorist, B. F. Skinner, sees humans as beings whose behavior is almost completely shaped by their surroundings. The behaviorists' view of the human being is quite mechanistic. They state that, like machines, humans respond to environmental stimuli (刺激) as the basis of their behavior.

Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching. In the US，for example, blacks often score below whites on standardized intelligence tests. This leads some “nature” proponents to conclude that blacks are genetically lower in status than whites. Behaviorists, on the contrary, say that the differences in scores are due to the fact that blacks are often robbed of many of the educational and other environmental advantages that whites enjoy, and that, as a result, they do not develop the same responses that whites do.

Neither of these theories can yet fully explain human behavior. In fact, it is quite likely that the key to our behavior lies somewhere between these two extremes and that the controversy will continue for a long time is certain.

1.This passage is mainly concerned with ________.

A. relation between personality and behavior

B. relation between behavior and environment

C. different accounts of patterns of human behavior

D. different theories of the formation of human behavior

2.The underlined word “proponents” in Paragraph 2 means ________.

A. creators B. advisors

C. advocates D. judges

3.In Paragraph 5, the author mainly writes about ________.

A. the considerable influence of the two theories

B. differences between the blacks and whites

C. racial discrimination in the United States

D. different responds to intelligence tests

4.What's the author's purpose in writing the passage?

A. To call our attention to the changes of human behavior.

B. To urge scientists to do more research in social science.

C. To give us a detailed explanation of human behavior.

D. To present an argument in the field of social science.

 

Answer 1

1.D

2.C

3.A

4.D

【解析】

試題分析: 本文主要討論了人的個性和智力是先天形成的還是受環(huán)境影響的

1.主旨大意題。首段首句指出作者要討論的問題，第 2 段開始從兩個方面解釋 該問題，末段是總結(jié)段，由此看來，首段首句和末段首句提到的 human behavior 是本文的 中心內(nèi)容，雖然文章首段第 2 句就提到 intelligent 一詞， 但該句的 intelligent， cooperative， competitive 等都只是舉例說明首句有關(guān) personalities 和 behaviors 的問題， 由此可見，選項(xiàng) B 并非本文主旨；作者提到兩種理論是為了解釋性格和行為形成的原因，并非討論這兩種理論形成的原因，因此 A和C兩項(xiàng)均不正確。選D

2.猜詞題。根據(jù)文章內(nèi)容，我們可以判斷 proponent 應(yīng)指人，指這兩種理論的支持者，只有 advocates“擁護(hù)者”符合這種推測，故選 C。

3.段落大意題：題干問第五段主要關(guān)于什么，這要看第五段的結(jié)構(gòu)。第一句Socially and politically, the consequences of these two theories are far-reaching.很明心是個概括句，下面的論據(jù)是為了證明這兩個理論的相當(dāng)大的影響。選A

4.寫作意圖題：結(jié)合文章的首尾可知作者的寫作目的是為了介紹社會科學(xué)領(lǐng)域的一個爭論嗎，答案選D

考點(diǎn)：社會現(xiàn)象類閱讀。